Directive 2011/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of the 8th of June 2011 on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (revised version)

Basic information on Directive 2011/65/EU:

EU Directive 2011/65/EU serves to restrict the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. It regulates the use and placing on the market of hazardous substances in electrical appliances and electronic components.

Directive 2011/65/EU (RoHS 2) replaced its predecessor Directive 2002/95/EC (RoHS 1) on the 3rd of January 2013. Both directives are unofficially abbreviated to RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances).

Commission Delegated Directive (EU) 2015/863 of March 31, 2015 amending Annex II to Directive 2011/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the list of restricted substances (Text with EEA relevance) is often referred to as RoHS 3. However, it does not replace RoHS 2, but only supplements it.

Good to know:

For the metal industry, lead is certainly the most important hazardous substance listed in EU Directive 2011/65/EU. The limit value for lead is set at 0.1 % in the directive.

However, since many applications cannot do without lead yet, the directive contains very important exceptions in Annex III, where a lead content of more than 0.1 % is permitted.

This means that a large number of common steel and metal materials are RoHS-compliant, even though their lead content is above 0.1 %. As the REACH regulation does not comprisean these exceptions, there are also materials that are RoHS-compliant but not REACH-compliant.

 

These are the most important exceptions in Annex III:

6a.: Lead as an alloying element in steel for processing purposes and in galvanised steel with a maximum lead content of 0.35% by mass

6b.: Lead as an alloying element in aluminium with a maximum lead content of 0.4% by mass

6c.: Copper alloys with a maximum lead content of 4% by mass